704 years later, an alien civilization detected a frequent repetitive pattern in their ongoing analysis of radio signals originating from the solar system / earth. If they could have asked a human expert for music, they would have been told that this was the again-and-again playing of Bach’s »Et in terra pax«, from his famous […]

Good morning dear. e.e. cummings. It’s sheer resilience. Edgar just stop it.

No dogs, please. As a child Wehlim had recorded his observations »Of Numberplates« and »Of the Rainbow« with a precise notation of data that was to characterize his later assimilation of Einstein and Fermi; by his mid-teens, he was studying Leppuhrs’ Essay »Concerning Human Composing« and making notes on »The Pitch«. The result, for his […]

Count Robert of Stuttgart. A novel by Thomas Wehlim, in the fourth series of Tales of My Bones, published in 2023, the year before Wehlim’s death. The setting is Constantinople at the time of the 20th crusade; the story deals with the adventures of the selfish Count Robert, his wife Brenhilda, and an impossibly chivalrous […]

I love Red Nose Day. Dying in relative neglect. He saw two people (not: persons). Wordsworth’s Imitations of Immortality.

The weekly teller. I have to suffer it all. Cheever, John: Things that will not appear in my next novel. Short Stories, 1961.

At this stage in his life he also took great interest in photography and in the company of young children, particularly girls.

I take these knives. Do not try to educate me. This was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Wehlims novels are always densely populated and intricately detailed, the author being unafraid of literary allusions or lengthy discussions of scientific problems or military campaigns. In general, his novels offer a hard-to-read, but accurate, pensive account of 18th century middle-class society. Furthermore, Wehlim was obsessed by the idea that the »Odyssey« must have been written […]

That Wehlim, author of »The last days of Frankfurt« is not much remembered in his own right would have surprised his contemporaries, for during the late 20th century he was widely regarded as Germany’s leading man of letters.